The present invention relates to air conditioning compressors and more particularly to the housings for air conditioning compressors.
Conventionally, for compressors employed in the air conditioning systems of vehicles, the housing is assembled from at least two separate parts. Typically, bolts are employed to hold the separate parts of the housing together. The bolts not only hold the housing together, but they also must provide a certain compressive load in order to assure that the housing seals properly. If not, refrigerant can leak out. A housing that is held together with bolts is not particularly well suited for this because the housing is usually made out a aluminum and the bolts are made out of steel. These materials have different thermal expansion characteristics. When the temperature in the engine compartment of a vehicle changes dramatically, the aluminum housing and the steel bolts expand at different rates, which changes the amount of compressive loadxe2x80x94thus, the clamping loads can vary substantially from the clamping loads obtained during assembly of the compressor.
The appropriate clamping load can be very important to assuring that the housing seals adequately. This is particularly true as new refrigerants may be used in the near future that operate in much higher pressure ranges than current refrigerants. Thus, it is desirable to have a housing assembly for an air conditioning compressor that overcomes the drawbacks of the bolted together housing assemblies. In particular, one that will allow for adequate sealing of the housing, while still remaining simple to assemble, light weight and cost effective, as is required to meet the demands in today""s automotive vehicles.
In its embodiments, the present invention contemplates a compressor for an air conditioning system. The compressor includes a first housing with an outer wall having an end with external threads thereon and an inner wall defining an inner cavity, and a component mounted partially within the inner cavity that has an outer surface sealingly engaging the inner wall. The compressor also includes a second housing having an inner wall defining an inner cavity for sealingly receiving a portion of the component along the component outer surface, and with the second housing including an engagement portion having an engagement device thereon. A clamping member, having a generally hollow cylindrical shape, includes a first set of internal threads that threadably engage the external threads on the first housing, and includes a second engagement device operatively engaging the engagement portion of the second housing such that rotation of the clamping member in a first direction will cause the first and the second housings to be pulled toward one another, and rotation of the clamping member in a second opposite direction will allow the first and the second housings to be pushed away from one another.
An advantage of the present invention is that the components of an air conditioning compressor housing can be assembled together and seal adequately within a wide temperature range.
Another advantage of the present invention is that the air conditioning compressor housing assembly is cost effective, assembles relative easily and minimizes the weight of the overall housing.